


Baby Chicks of Karasuno - The Kindergarten Chronicles

by Chikita



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Asahi is an Intern, Child Hinata Shouyou, Child Kageyama Tobio, Child Oikawa Tooru, Child Tsukishima Kei, Child Yachi Hitoka, Child Yamaguchi Tadashi, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Kid Fic, Kindergarten AU, Minor Angst, Slice of Life, Suga is a kindergarten teacher, everyone is smol, slight crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28172262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chikita/pseuds/Chikita
Summary: Suga had never regretted his decision to become a kindergarten teacher. After all, he loved working with children. Then again, being the sole supervisor of the crow-group was probably a bit too much, even for him (also featuring group dads Iwaizumi, Yaku, and Ushijima).
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Karasunos Küken - Eine Kindergartengeschichte](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/728568) by Yoshi11 (my account). 



> The original was well-received in the German part of the fandom so with me in quarantine with nothing productive to do, I decided to translate the first chapter and see how it goes 😅
> 
> Every chapter is its own thing but they’re set in the same universe (it’s gonna be 4 full chapters + a drabble)
> 
> This was written before the time skip and it’s all AU, I still love the idea of Suga as a daycare / kindergarten teacher. The first part is heavily based on suncelia’s team mom comics, and the rest...personal experience from volunteering in a kindergarten in Germany for one year.

It was one of those days where Suga, while not having any major regrets, did at least _reflect_ on his career choices. If someone had told him in high school that a few years after graduation, he would be standing amidst a mob of screaming children, half of whom couldn’t dress themselves, let alone go to the bathroom on their own, he would have questioned their sanity.

Indeed, staying sane was a struggle when he had to watch over the “crow-group”, well-known for being by far the most troublesome bunch of the entire kindergarten.

“Suga-saan, Shouyou and Tobio are fighting! Heelp!”, a tiny blonde girl wailed, once again clinging to the sleeve of Suga’s stained sweater, unable to calm down for even just a second.

“Give me a minute, Hitoka, please!” The girl responded to his plea by crying even more hysterically, making Suga worry about her suffering a heart attack at the tender age of three. Why her mother had deemed it appropriate to put a sensitive girl like her in the crow-group was a mystery. To Suga, that was comparable to throwing her to a pack of werewolves.

“No-hoo! They will die! Tobio said- he said-” She sobbed, nearly choking on her words. “He said he’s gonna rip Shouyou’s head off!” Stressed out and the tiniest bit overwhelmed, Suga’s eyes switched from the distraught, red-faced girl to the now no longer crying Tadashi in his arms. A few minutes ago, Yuu and Ryu had accidentally knocked him over during a wild game of tag, leading to him scraping both knees on the hardwood floor. At least _he_ seemed to be better now.

He set the boy down on the floor, and motioned him to find something quiet and hopefully safe to play with before he was dragged into the other room by an agitated Hitoka. The sight wasn’t much of a surprise. Quite the opposite. Shouyou and Tobio, their main troublemakers, were rolling around on the colorful rug between toy cars, dolls, and building blocks, pulling each other’s hair and making animalistic noises as if they were fighting a death match.

Kei, one of their youngest kids, was kneeling a few feet away next to a wooden box, peacefully assembling his army of dinosaur figures without paying attention to the two squabblers despite their excessive screaming. If only Suga _himself_ had been that jaded at three and a half years old. Surely, it would’ve given him some advantages in his current profession.

“Enough of this! Stop it! Now!” he called out as firmly as his gentle disposition allowed.

When that failed, he clapped his hands a few times to give Shouyou and Tobio a last chance to willingly let go of each other. When that _also_ failed since they had tuned out his presence in their bloodlust, he was forced to physically separate the two so they wouldn’t _actually_ tear each other’s heads off. Hitoka, still clinging to his pant leg, was trembling in fear. Suga dreaded that after only one year of kindergarten, she would develop some form of PTSD.

Several scratch- and bite marks, tears, and countless “He started!” accusations later, he had finally managed to calm Shouyou and Tobio down to the point where they were no longer pretending to be gladiators. Instead, they stood next to each other, grumbling and shooting each other bitter looks. Small children didn’t have their emotions under control yet and often expressed them with violence, but Suga hadn’t ever come across children as emotional as them.

“So, now _please_ tell me what that fight was about.” Sugawara crouched down in front of the two children to meet them at eye level. Based on his own experiences, he was most likely to get something out of them that way. For a while, the two said nothing, almost looking ashamed of their little scuffle. Shouyou was the first to speak up, pointing a finger at Tobio.

“Tobio took my ball!”, he complained in fake outrage. Sugawara let his gaze wander around the playroom until it landed on a pink rubber ball in a corner, disregarded and uncared for.

“He said I’m lousy at playing ball!”, Shoyou carried on while Tobio stood wordlessly by his side with his arms crossed and his lower lip sticking out, eyes on the floor, “And then he called me a _really_ bad word! Only bad naughty kids like Tobio use words like that!”

“What kind of word?” Suga turned to Tobio, who looked up at him with huge, one could almost say innocent, eyes, head tilting like a kicked puppy. In fact, he was quite cute with his chubby cheeks and blue eyes. If only he wasn’t such a social disaster. The whole kindergarten staff agreed that he would have a hard time in school if that didn’t change in the next few years.

“Dumbass,” Tobio confessed with utmost nonchalance. He couldn’t have sounded less guilty if he had tried. If Suga hadn’t been in a state of stress all day, he would’ve laughed at the childish pronunciation of the insult. Instead, confusion settled in. Where did Tobio, the baby of the bunch and probably the most clueless of them all, _learn_ those curse words from in the first place? He wasn’t advanced in regards to his language development. Yet he swore like a sailor.

“Tobio, you know that’s not a nice thing to say to a friend,” Suga told him in a calm voice, putting on his sternest expression. Sadly, his didn’t work nearly as effectively as Daichi's.

Now that Suga was forced to be in charge of the group, he missed his two coworkers. Kiyoko, the center of peace and the kind soul of the group, and Daichi, who prevented everything from descending into chaos. Now that the two were sick at home, Sugawara had to carry out both of their roles, and each passing minute proved that he was utterly incapable of doing so.

“Yeah, right! you can’t say stuff like that in kindergarten, you poopy head!”, Shouyou shot back.

If the narrowed eyes and clenched fists were of any indication, Tobio was seconds away from jumping his throat. Over time, Sugawara had gotten into the habit of reading Tobio’s body language instead of his facial expressions. After all, he almost always wore the same scowl on his face, no matter if he was eating, brushing his teeth, or sitting on the toilet.

“Shouyou, poopy head isn’t much better. That’s a bad word too.” Sugawara sighed. He was about to explain to the boys in the simplest terms so that it would fit into their tiny brains, that toys could be shared and conflicts could be solved with words that weren’t insults. Before he could start his rebuke, however, something unpleasant started brewing behind his back.

“Rooollin-” Suga spun around and rushed over to a row of shelves while ignoring the two troublemakers and Hitoka still glued to his leg. A certain four-year-old with windswept hair stood on top of the highest toy shelf, a proud smile splitting his cheeks. It was obvious what he planned to do. In his mind’s eye, Suga already saw countless bruises and open bone fractures.

“THUNDER!”, he yelled from the top of his lungs as he performed a leap that resembled a header sane people would only attempt from a diving board. With a dull “plop”, he landed in Suga’s arms. Fortunately, he had been there just in time to save the reckless boy from a traumatic brain injury.

“Awww! That wasn’t the real Rolling Thunder! Do it again!” Apparently, Ryu, Yuu’s best friend and partner in crime, had been cheering him on from the carpet. Suga made a mental note to not only scold him for _that_ but also explain that even though the playroom was properly heated, it wasn’t hot enough to walk around in just underpants and a sock on one foot.

“Yuu, I told you a hundred times not to climb on shelves!”, he scolded the grinning boy, but it was useless. Yuu, when push came to shove, only listened to Kiyoko, and only her. With few exceptions. Suga didn’t even get a chance to add anything when another kid demanded his attention.

A quick look around was enough. Chikara, one of the quieter and less troublesome children, sat on the floor holding his foot, his face scrunched up in pain. In front of him was his toy camera. The clunky object was made of cheap plastic, and Chikira had been carrying it around for days. On some days, he was so engrossed in his play he was blind to the world around him.

Poor little guy, Suga couldn’t help but flinch. He must have tripped and twisted his foot.

“I stepped on Lego!” he cried out instead, pointing at a tipped-over box in the back. Amidst the mess of tiny colorful bricks, Kazuhito and Hisashi were happily building up their knight’s castle without a care. Suga would never know which of them had knocked over the box. A borderline sadistic glee crept up in him as he imagined forcing the children to clean up the mess before lunchtime. But then again, it was more likely for all the work to be left to him again.

After he had comforted Chikara and scolded Yuu a second time, since Shouyou and Tobio were no longer about to kill each other, he went to look for Ryu’s missing clothes. What the heck did he do to make his pants end up on the ceiling lamp? Maybe it was better to not think about it _too_ hard. After a few minutes of searching, Suga finally spotted Ryu’s shirt and his missing sock in the cozy corner, buried under a stack of pillows. As he went to collect the items, he stopped to stroke Hitoka’s hair, who had been hiding there with a picture book.

If only the poor girl had ended up in the group his coworker Yaku led. Surely, things were a lot more peaceful there.

\---

“Suga-san, look, I drew something!”, Tadashi interrupted the comfortable silence that had settled in the other room. Suga had taken a break after warning the kids in the playroom that they wouldn’t get lunch today if they didn’t clean up. It was a cruel thing to say, but hey, it worked.

“That’s a...uh...lovely picture,” he lied after carefully observing the messy doodle consisting of two stick figures, one of whom looked like he was about to be mauled by a dinosaur. It was supposed to look like they were hugging but the creature’s maw was a little _too_ close to the person’s head.

“That’s me.” Tadashi’s bright smile lightened up the room as he pointed at one of the stick figures, “And this is Tsukki.” Of course, “Tsukki” was the one getting eaten by the dinosaur. What a way to bite the dust. With a huff, Sugawara propped his chin on his palms, resisting the temptation to take a quick nap on the table. It was quiet. Apparently, his threat had had the desired effect. Now he wasn’t even remotely sorry for making a majority of the gluttonous brats cry. If he wanted to be in control of the chaos, he had to learn to put his foot down.

He had to be strong and assertive to be worthy of taking Daichi’s place. There was no other way.

At least Hitoka had finally emerged from her pillow fort and taken a seat next to Tadashi. In her hand was a black crayon, her face pinched in an intense expression as she went on to assault a sheet of paper. Sugawara looked over her shoulder to take a peek at her drawing. Granted, it didn’t look half-bad. Unlike Tadashi, she appeared to have artistic talent. It was easy to see what the strokes of black and red were supposed to represent. Still, it _was_ a bit unusual for a three-year-old girl to draw a picture of a kindergarten going up in flames.

At one of the other tables, Kei had made himself comfortable with a jigsaw puzzle. It was meant for preschoolers, but as long as he didn’t put the pieces in his mouth or stick them in his ears like some of the other children did at times _(cough_ , Shouyou, _cough)_ , it was all fine and dandy.

How nice it was to be surrounded by well-behaved children for once. Maybe, Suga’s decision to work in a kindergarten instead of becoming a school teacher had been right after all. Kids were always exhausting to deal with, regardless of their age. Every school class had one or two of those rowdies. At least in kindergarten, he didn’t have to check anyone’s homework.

But then again, children of Shouyou’s and Tobio’s age were “difficult” in their own right. Suga took another glance at his stained top, which he had wanted to change over an hour ago. Thanks to the children, he hadn't had the chance to do so. Of course, as a kindergarten teacher, it wasn’t uncommon to get messy. When helping the littlest ones eat, who tended to confuse their tomato sauce with finger paint, staying clean was practically impossible.

Today, however, his clothes hadn’t even lasted until lunch. For kids being separated from their families at a young age, the transition to kindergarten was always associated with stress. Every child dealt with it differently. Shouyou had demonstrated that this morning when, instead of saying “hello” like the other children, he had thrown up all over Suga’s sweater.

After that, he’d said “hello” to him anyway, smiling, as if that had all been part of his greeting.

Shouyou’s mother had disappeared out of sight a second too soon. Therefore, Suga hadn’t been able to turn her son back on to her. It would’ve been a weak excuse either way since Shouyou was known for getting sick when he got too excited. In times like that, it was better to keep him at a safe distance until he had calmed down, if only for the sake of Suga’s clothes.

Yes, perhaps it was better to wait until lunch was over and the troublemakers were settled in the nap room recovering from their misdeeds. Changing clothes before lunch when dealing with little mucky pups defied common sense. Even if that meant smelling of roughly rinsed out vomit for a few minutes longer. Humans were adaptable. They got used to hellfire if they had to.

It was only a few minutes from noon when little Chikara came toddling into the room in non-slip socks. Suga only had to look him in the eye _once._ Apparently, the “cleanup” plan hadn’t worked as well as he’d expected. Well, trying never hurt. At least he hadn’t stepped on a Lego brick again, or maybe he’d gotten used to the pain like Sugawara had to his dirty sweater.

“Shouyou and Tobio are fighting... _again.”_ The groan that escaped Suga’s throat could be heard all the way to America. Of course, they were fighting, it wasn’t like they had anything else to do.

“They’re stupid,” Kei spoke up, smirking as he completed his hundred-piece puzzle, “How about we sent them back to nursery with the little babies. They’re too stupid to play with the big kids.”

“Don’t say that. None of our kids are stupid,” Suga scolded him, trying to cut out the mean remarks right from the start, despite his own feelings. Kei would probably have a hard time in school as well, though for different reasons than Tobio. Nobody liked having a smartass bully in class.

“Here we go,” Suga said more to himself than to any of the children, and followed Chikara into the playroom. His right eye twitched as he caught sight of the chaos. Cleanup, _huh?_ The room, unsurprisingly, still looked like a battlefield and there were those freaking Lego bricks everywhere, reminiscent of landmines or bear traps. It was almost impossible not to step on one of the colorful bricks, which could be horribly painful if one was only wearing socks like Suga.

In the midst of all the mess, Shouyou and Tobio were having one of their usual fights. Well, at least this time they refrained from using violence and curse words. That was a big step forward for the two three-year-olds, who sometimes behaved like they shared a brain cell.

“What’s going on here?” Suga asked, and immediately, a horde of children came running towards him, each of them with their own far-fetched explanation for why the room looked the way it did. Thrown off by the jumble of voices, Suga preferred to focus on the essentials. What did Daichi always say? Don’t get roped into their arguments, otherwise, they’ll walk all over you? After taking a deep breath to collect himself, he took a sweeping blow.

“Yuu, we’re about to have lunch soon, so take off the superhero costume. Kazuhito, Hisashi, put your Lego castle on the shelf so we have space for the beds later. Ryu, you put your pants back on right now, we don’t want half-naked kids sitting at our lunch table!” After he had spent a good minute talking his head off, he called over Shouyou and Tobio. The two pointed their fingers at each other while chattering wildly, the latter only coming up with swear words again.

“Tobio said I look like a garden gnome!” Shouyou whined, but this time, Suga didn’t cater to his tattling, only raised a hand to shush the little guy. He then put on his friendliest smile as a stroke of genius occurred to him. It couldn’t hurt to use their rivalry to his advantage, right?

“Why don’t you make a game out of it? Whoever picks up the most toys wins. Sounds fun?”

Suga chuckled to himself as the kids stared at him with eyes wide like dinner plates, the dusty gears in their heads turning. A mere second later, they beamed at him with excitement, and he hadn’t even announced a reward for the winner. Most kids had to be bribed with candy first. _Not them._

“I’ll pick up more toys than that stupid poopy head over there!” Shouyou declared war on Tobio, and before Suga could snap his fingers, they were dashing across the room to pick up all the Lego bricks, animal figures, toy cars, and torn-off doll heads from the floor. In their frenzy, a few toys ended up in the wrong box, but it was better than leaving them to rot on the floor.

Suga helped Kazuhito store his and Hisashi’s castle on the shelf, while Hisashi carefully sorted the remaining Lego parts by size and color and put them in a separate box. Yuu had listened to Suga for the first time that day and took off his costume without a single complaint. Fortunately, lunchtime was still more important to him than his “super cool” cape. Even kids who jumped off shelves with death’s courage had to be hungry at some point.

Ryu, after he’d found his pants, started cheering on Shouyou and Tobio, who were racing from one side of the room to the other, tidying up the place almost single-handedly while screaming for no reason. Their parents’ eyes would fall out of their skulls if they saw how quickly two toddlers could whip a playroom into shape. All they had to do was flip a switch, like that of a toaster.

The analogy worked, but he’d better not tell their parents he was equating their boys with toasters.

\---

Suga was quite proud of himself for managing to gather everyone at the table within a few minutes, unscathed, unharmed, and fully clothed. Today they had spinach with scrambled eggs for lunch, a healthy meal for kids who were still in their growing stages. With Shouyou and Yuu, Suga had always been surprised they were so short for their ages, considering how they stuffed their faces at every meal. However, that wasn’t the case for some of the _other_ kids.

“Kei, aren’t you hungry at all?” Suga crouched down next to the little one who was poking at his food, making no attempts to try any of it. Kei looked up at Suga for a brief moment, blinking through his thick glasses before reverting his eyes back to his plate. He frowned, lips pressed together.

“I don’t like veggies,” he muttered. Suga shook his head at his statement, one he was used to hearing in altered versions every other day. “I don’t like chicken, I don’t like curry, I don’t like tomato sauce-” It was always the same. If he didn’t like the tomato sauce that was being served, he also didn’t like the noodles because they were contaminated with tomato sauce.

“If you don’t eat, there won’t be any sunshine today. Only big rain cloud!”, Shouyou chimed in. After fidgeting through his meal, he was almost standing on the edge of his chair. Yuu and Ryu understood his words as a sign to get terribly upset. They wanted to play power rangers and space pirates in the backyard, and now Kei was ruining all their plans. Kei, unimpressed as always, shrugged while continuing to draw various geometric shapes in his spinach.

That was unfortunate. Kei was skinny as a beanpole and his parents wouldn’t be thrilled if Suga told them their son hadn’t touched any of his food. Of course, he couldn’t force him to eat, but if little Kei wanted to get some meat on his bones, he _had_ to eat, whether he liked it or not.

All of sudden, Suga was hit with a genius idea for how he could get him to eat his veggies after all.

He disappeared into the next room where the children kept their stuffies and blankies for naptime. Kei also had a toy like this, and _of course,_ it was a dinosaur. A little brown one with black beady eyes, tiny arms, and a wide-open maw. For a three-year-old, the toy looked more frightening than cute, but Tsukki was attached to it like Kenma from Yaku’s cat-group was attached to his tablet. Even after nap time, Kei always found it hard to part ways with his dino.

When Suga entered the room holding the stuffed animal, his heart filled with confidence. At the end of the day, Kei was still a small child, even if he tended to act more mature than his peers. His hopes were confirmed when Kei’s eyes grew wide and shiny upon seeing his dinosaur friend. “I-Ichigo!” he exclaimed in delight, his voice cheerful as he made grabby hands in the air, “My Ichigo!” It was adorable if a little weird to call a dangerous-looking dinosaur toy “strawberry,” but that was one of the few foods Kei wasn’t disgusted by.

“Do you know why your dino is here?”, Suga asked in a cooing voice, making the stuffed animal walk around on the table like a hand puppet. Kei’s eyes followed the movements of the stuffed animal as if he was hypnotized, and finally looked up at Suga with pleading eyes. The dining room was quiet. None of the children made a peep. Even Yuu had stopped yelling to Ryu about power rangers, and to his left, Shouyou had climbed on top of the table to get a better view. The fact that half of his shirt was covered in spinach didn’t concern him in the least.

“Your Ichigo is all sad because you won’t eat your veggies, Kei. Dinosaurs love eating spinach and all kinds of veggies. If you want your dino to be happy again, you have to eat yours, too.” Suga beamed, still excited about his fantastic idea. While it was kind of mean to manipulate kids, the method seemed the most fitting given the current situation. Surely it would-

“No!” Kei slammed his tiny hands on the table, shooting Suga an icy look, the latter associated with both little Tobio and his old English teacher, “Ichigo is a T-Rex! They don’t eat veggies, only other dinosaurs. And Ichigo eats humans too.” The last sentence sounded like a threat. Now, looking at the stuffed toy with its “sharp” teeth and deep red maw, his mistake seemed foolish, something he should’ve realized long ago. But who would’ve expected an adult with a higher education to be lectured by a toddler on dinosaur lore?

After this disgrace, Suga gave up his attempts to make Kei try his lunch. Instead, he went to comfort Hitoka, who was trembling in her chair after Kei’s words about man-eating dinosaurs. Suga assured her that the stuffed toy wasn’t about to eat her alive and that Kei had just made a bad joke. After that was taken care of, he placed Shouyou back on his chair and scolded him for eating like a feral animal before tugging his spinach-stained shirt over his head.

“Suga-san! You said half-naked kids can’t sit at the lunch table!”, Ryu complained, throwing his chopsticks on the floor in an act of defiance, “If Shouyou’s taking his clothes off, I wanna take off _my_ clothes too.”

Without waiting for Suga’s reaction, he carried out his plans until he was sitting at his spot at the table dressed in nothing but underpants and socks. With a content smile, he went back to eat as if the world was at peace again. Suga would have to take his temperature later. Perhaps his sense of warm and cold was disturbed and _that_ was why he felt the need to constantly get naked.

\---

There was one advantage to having a budding exhibitionist in the crow-group. Suga never had to encourage Ryu to take off his clothes for nap time. After the kids had brushed their teeth in the bathroom, Suga helped the younger ones change into their pajamas and set up their beds. After lunch, he had barely managed to keep Tadashi from falling face-down into his half-eaten spinach. Suga chuckled as he carried the now fast asleep boy into the darkened room.

“Shouyou, are you sure you want to sleep next to Tobio?” Like the day before, he had placed his futon right next to that of his “nemesis”. Suga didn’t buy Shouyou’s excuse of “making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid”. The two might’ve been arguing and insulting each other all day long, but when a nap was in order, they were attached at the hip, almost like twins.

Maybe it was because Tobio was half a year younger and Shouyou felt inclined to look out for him? Maybe? The more Suga thought about their strange friendship, the less sense it made.

“Suga-san, what story are we reading today?” Yuu jumped up and down in his superhero print pajamas as if he hadn’t been bouncing around non-stop since six in the morning, “Can we read a scary story? Please! Scary stories!” Ryu followed him no less excitedly, dressed in his usual outfit and dragging a stuffed animal in the shape of a great white shark behind him.

“Shh!”, Suga reminded them, putting a finger to his lips, “Tadashi is sleeping. If you two keep making noise, there won’t be any story today.” Daichi had made this threat before. On a day when Shouyou and Tobio had been yelling at each other at nap time until Hitoka had burst into tears, he had carried it out. Hopefully this time, a threat would be enough. As much as the kids drove him up the wall sometimes, he didn’t want to deprive them of their bedtime story.

“Please no scary stories!”, Hitoka wailed with tears in her eyes, clinging to his leg again. Sugawara tucked Tadashi in, who continued to sleep without a care in the world and then took care of little Hitoka, whose anxious nature meant she always needed more help falling asleep. Scary stories were out of the question. Suga had made it a habit to read from a storybook consisting of child-friendly fairy tales, careful to not choose one that might result in nightmares.

So he sat there, in the midst of half-awake children, reading today’s story. The dim light that crept in through the gaps in the blinds calmed his frazzled nerves, making him feel more at ease. The story he had chosen was an imaginative fairy tale, one that his parents had read to him many years ago when he had been that young. It was a nice feeling to share a part of his childhood with “his” children, even if they had no idea how much this particular story meant to him.

The sudden, sentimental thought made him interrupt his flow of speech and look around the room.

Hitoka was fast asleep next to him, her head resting on a pillow on his lap. As long as Suga kept stroking her hair, she wouldn’t make a ruckus. On his other side, Tadashi was sprawled out on his back. In his deep slumber, he didn’t make a single noise. Tobio had also entered the realm of dreams, often falling asleep in a matter of seconds. Shouyou, on the other hand, was sitting up on his bed with his knees drawn up to his chest, eyes falling shut over and over again.

Even Ryu and Yuu were quiet for once and listening to the story, despite it not being a scary one. The others were either asleep or busy with their stuffed animals. Kei was curled up on his side next to Tadashi, in his arms none other than his beloved Ichigo, whose name he kept muttering to himself in his sleep. Suga smiled. A warm sense of contentment settled in his core. Even though those weren’t _his_ children, he loved each and every one of them all the same.

“Aww...Is the story over already?”, Shouyou interrupted his musings. Instead of scolding him, Suga shook his head and went back to reading. Even if a majority of the kids would sleep through the conclusion, it didn’t matter. Few kids were lucky enough to be read to by their parents every night. Most of them worked long hours, had no time, or simply no interest in reading. He wanted to make a difference, so none of the kids had to miss out on storytime.

By the time Suga finished reading, the room was quiet, except for soft snoring and breathing noises.

It wouldn’t be long before the first kids woke up. Yuu was an early riser and, at four years old, didn’t _need_ his nap anymore. Once he was up, Ryu wouldn’t sleep for long either. Hitoka woke up at the sound of a needle dropping, and little Tobio was plagued by nightmares every now and then. Suga had to savor the time silence ruled and they all got their much-needed rest.

With another huff, he leaned against the heater and closed his eyes. Fatigue had crept into every nook of his body. Surely, he’d be able to fall asleep any moment now. In times like this, he envied the kids for not having to worry about anything, flopping over with complete trust. One look at Hitoka, a bundle of nerves during the day, sleeping at his side, confirmed his views. Being able to have faith in someone like that must’ve been wonderful, really.

Maybe he should message Daichi and Kiyoko. Surely, they were worried, since he had just finished his training and was now left alone with a group of lively, and sometimes unruly children.

With a puff of pride, he would tell them how he had settled a dispute between Shouyou and Tobio, saved Yuu from imminent death, and got the kids to clean up their playroom in record time. He would only have to leave out the part where he had embarrassed himself with the dinosaur plushie if he didn’t want to be laughed at by Daichi. Suga was about to enter a light doze when a sudden rustling noise on the other side of the room forced him to pry his eyes open.

Shouyou stood on his mattress, fuzzy hair even more tousled than usual, eyes swollen from sleep. He hadn’t been able to stay in bed for long. “I...have to go potty,” he said in a soft voice, before turning on his heel and making his way to where he believed the door to be. Groggy as he was, he tripped over the pile of blankets under which Tobio had been sleeping peacefully.

_Until now._

Shouyou looked genuinely surprised when said Tobio jolted out of his sleep with a terrified gasp, promptly venting his anger about the rude awakening in his own way. Before Suga could so much as _think_ of intervening, Shouyou was on the floor, Tobio on top of him.

Their squeaking caused Hitoka to wake up with a startled cry. Yuu took the noise as a sign to leap up from his bed and yell “wakey wakey” into everyone’s ears. Half of the, now very alert children then remembered they had to go potty too, and very badly! After brushing their teeth, Suga had urged every single one of them to take care of that _before_ going to bed, but well, tell that to kids between the ages of three and four. That was the end of today’s naptime.

The only one who slept through the chaos without a single blink of an eye was Tadashi. Bombs could be dropped over Tokyo, volcanoes could erupt, Tadashi would sleep through all of it. And while the apocalypse raged outside, he dreamed of his adventures with Tsukki and his man-eating dinosaur friend as they danced hand in hand into a poorly drawn sunset.

\---

Suga hadn’t looked in the mirror in a while, and yet his face had to be adorned with stress wrinkles and dark circles under his eyes. At least he had finally managed to put on a clean shirt. When it was time to join the cat- and owl-group outside in the backyard, he had to at least look presentable, not like he had just tumbled out of bed after a night of binge-drinking.

_Speaking of binge-drinking..._

“Tobio, don’t you think you’ve had enough? You’re gonna get a tummy ache.” Suga watched the boy pour himself his fourth cup of milk. The blank look he gave him answered all of his questions.

It was Tobio’s luck that he didn’t have to share his favorite drink with anyone, since the other kids were too busy fighting over a can of orange juice. The sugary stuff was probably bad for their teeth, but this way no one had to be forced or manipulated to drink. Kei sat at the table, clutching his stuffed T-Rex in one arm as he nibbled on a few chocolate-chip cookies to go with his juice. Fine, if he refused to eat his greens, at least he was eating cookies. Suga didn’t have to tell his parents what exactly their son had eaten today, as long as it was something.

“Are we going to the playground today?”, Yuu asked for what must have been the fiftieth time that afternoon, wiggling around in his chair like he had ants up his butt. His eyes lit up with anticipation of finally playing power rangers, space pirates, or whatever with all of his friends. Ryu demonstrated his growing restlessness by tilting his chair, terrifying a paling Hitoka.

“Yes. But only after we’ve all finished eating,” Suga answered patiently, also for the fiftieth time.

A mere glance out the window told him that Shouyou’s predictions had thankfully not come true. Instead, the sun was shining into the room, blinding a drowsy Tadashi, and announcing the good news to Suga, that he didn’t have to spend today’s afternoon herding cats...er, _crows_ inside. When kids were allowed to indulge their natural impulses, they flourished, were less grouchy, and didn’t fight as often. But they still got into their fair share of shenanigans.

One time, Daichi had sprained his foot after having to rescue Yuu from a tree. To this day, no one knew how Yuu, barely three years at the time, had gotten up there. For safety’s sake, so that it wouldn’t happen again, the management had decided to cut down said tree. Only later had it become clear that without a tree, Yuu would simply find more creative ways to put his life in danger.

It wasn’t long until Yuu, Ryu, and Shouyou started singing “Go go power rangers!”, loudly and off-key. Meanwhile, Tobio was on the verge of a mental breakdown because Tadashi had accidentally tipped over his milk cup, and Chikara made himself useful by using Hisashi’s blankie as a dish towel. Now, the time had come to take the little monsters outside for some fresh air.

This time the cleanup process went on without any problems, even though Tobio, their youngest, was still sobbing to himself while putting away his dishes. Shouyou tried his best to console him. It was a strange sight, but at least he didn’t laugh like Kei did. Sugawara proceeded to roughly wipe down the table, this time with a proper rag and shooed the fidgety children towards the bathroom so that they could wash up and, most importantly, go to the toilet.

“I don’t have to go, Suga-san. I went already.” Shouyou stood in the hallway with his arms crossed. He refused to join the rest of the kids in the bathroom, even though he had downed three glasses of juice ten minutes ago and was already shifting from one foot to the other.

“Yes, you have to. You of all kids! We don’t have any more spare clothes for you, so get in there!” Suga shoved the fussing boy straight in the direction of the bathroom, unwilling to argue about something that important. To make sure he went instead of doing something like attempting to flush any unwieldy objects down the toilet, he sent Chikara to keep watch. In the meantime, Suga took care of little Tobio and Hitoka, who needed a bit more help getting dressed.

\---

Around half an hour later, when they were all in the backyard, Sugawara could finally relax. The afternoon sun warmed his face and the hard bench he had settled on felt almost as comfortable as a proper couch for lack of alternatives. He hadn’t moved all that much, and yet his bones ached. Hopefully, Daichi and Kiyoko would soon be fit enough to join in the chaos again.

A tired but amused smile crept onto Suga’s face as he watched his two troublemakers, Shouyou and Tobio, toss a ball to each other. Of course, these peaceful moments didn’t last long, but they were worth savoring. Whenever the two argued and he questioned their friendship, he reminded himself of Shouyou’s radiant smile when he’d managed to catch a ball Tobio had thrown in his direction. After Tobio’s move from daycare to kindergarten, he’d been struggling to make friends until Shouyou had taken the younger boy under his wing.

“Your kids play so nicely together. I wish _my_ little rascals were like that.” Yaku, leader of the cat-group, plopped down onto the bench next to Suga. He looked as exhausted as Sugawara felt, and apparently, Suga had been worrying about his stained shirt for nothing. Yaku’s looked worse.

“Are you kidding me?” Suga shook his head in disbelief, letting out a nervous chuckle. “They’re up to mischief all day. They didn’t even sleep for half an hour at naptime.” Yaku laughed in response, almost gleefully, before he became serious again, his brows furrowing.

“Lev got Shouhei and Sou to paint the walls. With black sharpie. We don’t have sharpies in kindergarten,” he began, running his hand through his short hair, “Tetsurou clogged up one of the toilets and none of them slept today. Did you know Tora has started throwing food lately?”

Now, Suga was the one laughing. To think that he had envied Yaku for his peaceful, well-behaved children. “Ever since Lev joined the group, it’s been pure chaos. Don’t ask me how a three-year-old manages to tear down the curtains four times a week, but he’s doing it.”

Suga followed his coworkers’ gaze to the light-haired boy, whose sheer height made him look like a schoolchild. At the moment, he was trying to push one of the girls from the owl-group on the swing. Emphasis on “trying”, because a second later he had pushed the girl _off_ the swing. Fortunately, the child seemed to be one of the tougher ones and got a good laugh out of it.

“I’m more worried about Kenma, though,” Yaku said all of sudden, “He’s not exactly new to the group, but now that Tetsurou has made friends with that Koutarou from the owl-group, he’s lagging behind. He always talks so little, never approaches other kids...It’s difficult.”

Suga scanned the playground for a boy with shiny black hair and eventually spotted him in the sandbox. Just then he was being harassed by Shouyou, who was wildly gesticulating for him to play. Tobio stood beside them, still clutching the ball from before and observing the situation with his usual scowl. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Kenma,” Suga said, nudging Yaku with his elbow, “He’ll be fine. He’s just a little quieter than most kids.”

“I hope you’re right,” Yaku replied with a smile. Apparently, Suga had an ally amidst all the chaos. While Yuu and Ryu ran around the playground, flung themselves onto the ground, and rolled down the hill, Sugawara made use of his newly discovered free time to talk to Yaku. With the stories about what their kids had been up to all day, one could fill entire books.

It didn’t take long before the first kids were picked up by their parents, grandparents, or older siblings. Time had gone by in a flash and slowly but surely, the sun was starting to set.

“Moom!” Shouyou yelled over the entire playground when his mother showed up at the gate. Without further hesitation, he jumped from the top of the monkey bars, ignoring a baffled Tobio as he hurried over to greet his mother. Their reunion was as joyous as ever. Only after countless kisses and hugs did the little boy finally let go of his mother. With a skip in his step, he made his way towards the bench where Sugawara and Yaku were sitting to bid them goodbye, almost tripping. His mother followed him with measured steps, smiling at the endless energy of her son, who was far from tired even without a proper nap.

“Was my little darling good today?”, she asked, half addressing Shouyou and half addressing the teachers, which she always did when picking up her son. Suga, hit with a flashback of all the unpleasant scenes of the day, wanted to give her an honest answer. He really did. But then he made his biggest mistake of the day by looking at Shouyou. The boy was clinging to his mother’s long skirt, looking up at him with big brown doe eyes. It should be illegal to be that cute.

“Shouyou’s always a good boy,” Suga replied, resisting the urge to slap his forehead, “He played nicely with Tobio and Kenma today, and he’s...fairly independent for his age.” His last statement wasn’t a lie. Nevertheless, “good boy” was not a term that suited the fuzzy-headed troublemaker.

His mother didn’t probe deeper, only nodded as one of her hands made its way onto her belly. “That’s great to hear, now that he’s gonna be a big brother in a few months,” she finally confirmed Suga’s suspicions of her pregnancy. As if on cue, Shoyou started bouncing on the spot, chattering about how he looked forward to getting a baby sister. Suga was torn between excitement for the new baby and a silent fear that the existence of a mini-version of Shouyou would cause the universe to explode. Nevertheless, he wished the young family all the best and said goodbye to Shouyou, who, for once, didn’t puke on his lap or anywhere else.

Slowly, the stressful day came to an end. Shortly after Shouyou and his mother had left, they met up with Tobio’s parents at the gate. The two rascals, still full of energy, spurred each other on to flip the nearby park upside down. Now someone else but Suga was responsible for their well-being. Hopefully, they’d be back the next day without any broken bones.

Tadashi and Kei were picked up by both of their parents as well. Tadashi had fallen asleep on the carousel and hadn’t even noticed he was being spun around in circles by Tetsurou and his buddy Koutarou. Lev didn’t get the chance to inflict more bruises on himself or the other kids. When his whole family came for him, he proceeded to get on the nerves of his older sister instead.

All in all, it was a relaxed afternoon, and Suga couldn’t think of a better way to end his workday. More than anything, though, he was glad to receive a message from Daichi.

He had recovered from his flu and would soon return to his regular duties. Now only Kiyoko was missing before the crow-staff was united again. Sugawara waved after a smiling Hitoka, the last to be picked up by her mother after Lev, and finally set about packing up his belongings.

An eventful day at kindergarten was coming to an end, but many more eventful days would follow.


	2. The New Victim...uhh, the New Intern!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crows get a new addition to their “team”. But at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter as a bonus to the main story, so this is shorter than the other three.
> 
> This also...kinda explains why Asahi hasn’t been in the first chapter. He’s here 😅

“Azumane Asahi, correct?”, Suga double-checked as he shook the man’s warm hand, welcoming him to the crow-group with a bright smile. When the principal of the kindergarten had informed him that a student intern would be assigned to their group, Suga had rejoiced. Daichi was back on his feet by now, but they could always use an extra pair of hands, even though the intern in question was said to have virtually _no_ experience in the field of child care.

“I’m grateful that I get to do my internship here,” Asahi said without stopping for breath, bowing deeply, “I’m not great at interviews and...well, last time I spilled my water and then I was afraid I’d end up on one of those black lists and never get a job and...I didn’t have to say all of that, did I?” Suga stifled a laugh at the student’s excessive nervousness and patted him on the back.

“The pleasure is all ours,” he said, Daichi nodding next to him, “Now that we’re so short of staff, we need all the help we can get. Honestly, the flu epidemic has been a disaster last year. Parents bring their feverish, snotty-nosed brats to kindergarten and we have to pick up the slack. But that’s old news.” Asahi winced at the mention of diseases, but kept his mouth shut.

“I’ll show you around. The first kids will be arriving soon, and then we’ll have a little meet and greet.” With a twinkle in his eye, Suga motioned Asahi to follow him out of the room. He was nice and polite, though he didn’t look like someone you’d want to run into after dark, let alone trust with your offspring. His height, broad shoulders, goatee, and long hair made him look like a thug, but those were externals. On the inside, he seemed to be more of a soft boy.

“I’m worried the little ones won’t like me,” Asahi spoke up, as Sugawara was about to show him where the kids kept their toothbrushes, “I do really love children, but they always think I’m scary.”

Suga shook his head with a chuckle. “Um...perhaps, it’s not so bad if they’re a little scared of you,” he said tongue-in-cheek, sighing when Asahi didn’t appear to share his sense of humor.

But still, maybe Asahi’s rather imposing stature was an advantage when it came to teaching the naughty, ill-behaved children some much-needed respect. Maybe they would settle down a little and finally stop abusing Daichi’s absence to wreak havoc. Having an unpaid helper came with its perks, and Asahi could learn a few skills for his future career. Mainly patience, tenacity and nerves of steel. Those were qualities everyone could use in today’s day and age.

The proposed “meet-and-greet” didn’t defy Suga’s expectations. Hitoka was clinging to his leg the entire time, too anxious to make eye contact with the stranger. Even Shouyou, always friendly and open-minded, looked like he was about to pee his pants at any moment. Only Ryu and Yuu had approached the “new teacher” without a trace of fear, and were now asking him about important things such as the color of his underwear, favorite superhero and shoe size.

Suga smiled to himself as his scheme proved to be a success. Ryu and Yuu aside, as long as the other kids were intimidated, even if it was only for the first few days, things were going great. Later, he could always teach them that judging strangers by their physical appearance was a bad thing. But for now, he would just play along. Kids were always so impressionable.

“Like I said, Asahi-san will be staying with us for the next four weeks. Please be kind and don’t give him any trouble. He’ll get _very_ angry if you mess with him.” he said, a devilish grin creeping onto his face while he ignored his bad conscience. After that introduction, the majority of the kids huddled together like a flock of birds, staring up at him and Asahi with wide, fearful eyes. While Daichi continued to glare at his friend and coworker, Suga kept feigning innocence, before fetching some chairs and colorful scarves to prepare today’s group game.

\---

After Suga had been singing, drawing and doing crafts with Daichi, Asahi and the kids, it was time for some free play until noon when lunch was served. Since it was raining cats and dogs outside, making use of the playground in the backyard was out of the question. But what did they have a playroom for, not to mention their new intern to keep an eye on the little rascals?

“You can’t scare them like that,” Daichi spoke up as he and Suga sat at one of the tables in the dining room, “What do you think they’ll tell their parents? Besides, it’s not fair to paint Asahi as some kind of bully. He’s just a student.” With a sigh, Sugawara set his steaming cup of tea down and leaned back in the tiny chair that hadn’t been made with adult bodies in mind.

Since their new intern had joined the group, everyone had been so quiet and well-behaved, it was almost eerie. Of course, children were always a bit wary of strangers, a good thing when it came to certain situations. Yet, Daichi had a point, as always. It was cruel to scare them on purpose. Asahi was such a gentle, nice guy. Surely, he wouldn’t _ever_ think of harming a child.

“It’s not like we threatened them with corporal punishment,” Suga replied, but turned soft at his friend’s reprimanding scowl, “Fine, you’ve convinced me. I’ll tell them it was a joke.” He got up from his seat and trotted off to the playroom. Even though it was lovely to have some peace and quiet for once, he didn’t want to upset anyone, neither his children nor the kind new intern.

\---

However, when Suga opened the door, all the years of training could not have prepared him for what he would see. So much for eerie silence and terrified children. Quite the opposite.

Their new intern was seated in the middle of the room on one of the bigger kiddie chairs and didn’t look like someone who was even _remotely_ in control of the situation. His arms were tied behind his back and his head was adorned with a cowboy hat covered in paper streamers. He looked like a generic victim from a bad western movie. Minus the streamers, of course.

Laughing, the two hot-tempered kids Ryu and Yuu ran around him in circles, dragging a rope behind their backs with which they had been tying him up. Hitoka, sweet innocent Hitoka, balanced on top of another kiddie chair behind Asahi and proceeded to braid his hair using colorful bows, rubber bands and candy wrappers. The pink makeup that graced Asahi’s cheekbones and lips must have been stolen from the makeup kit Hitoka’s mother owned.

Meanwhile, Chikara was busy taking photos with his toy camera, as if he intended to produce blackmail material. Well, it was good practice for his future career as a journalist. Tadashi and Kei, bless their souls, had dumped out all the boxes containing stuffed animals. Now they were reenacting a tea party, with Ichigo as the princess, if the plastic crown on the T-Rex’s head was of indication. Ryu’s shark plushie joined them, making the scene look even more bizarre.

Tobio apparently didn’t feel like playing pretend today. Instead, he was trying his best to knock as many flower pots as possible off the window sill, using the same pink ball he and Shouyou had been fighting about the week before. For a three-year-old, his hit ratio was impressive.

“Asahi-san is so cool!” Shouyou called across the room, bouncing on the man’s lap, “He’s fun to play games with, and he’s not scary at all. He doesn’t even scold us when we fool around.” At least the kid had a sense of self-reflection, unlike some people. Asahi, on the other hand, visibly overwhelmed with the chaos around him, shot Suga a look of anguish and guilt.

“They wanted to play cowboy!” the poor guy squawked, as if that explained anything. Suga shook his head. It had been a mistake to make an inexperienced schoolboy, still wet behind the ears, watch over a horde of naughty children. Suga was now painfully aware of _that_ fact as he rushed towards Asahi to put the guy out of his misery, or rather, his shackles.

Painful was a good cue, because after only a few steps, a sharp pain in his foot made Suga cry out. A downward glance revealed that he had stepped on a Lego-“whatever it was supposed to represent”, which had been built by little Hisashi. The latter now stood in front of him. His eyes were bulging out in shock, his lower lip quivering as he alternated between looking at his teacher’s confused face and the remains of his work, which was no longer recognizable as such.

Suga didn’t get a chance to decide whether to scold or comfort him when Hisashi slapped away his outstretched hand. Before Suga could explain his accident, he rushed off to the cozy corner where he flung himself into a pile of pillows, bawling as if his goldfish had died. Kazuhito followed his friend and ally in the battle of Lego bricks, but not before casting a scathing look at Suga.

Tobio, proud like a little king, marched up to his teacher and topped off the whole mess by pointing to the maltreated flower pots on the floor as if he expected to be praised for his misdeeds.

“Full score,” he stated in a dry voice, blue eyes sparkling like fireworks. The last time Suga had heard these words was when _his_ teacher had congratulated him on passing his final exam. At the time, he had been delighted. Today, however, he came to realize that exam results weren’t always reliable and that karma didn’t spare even the most stressed-out kindergarten teachers.

“I’m sorry,” Asahi muttered, still tied to the chair. Suga nodded in understanding, whereas Tobio turned around with a huff and marched off to the bathroom, the ball still tugged under his arm.

“It’s fine,” Suga replied, feeling more sorry for himself. His foot still throbbed. Ryu and Yuu, who had gotten bored of playing cowboys, scampered around on the window sill, the one that had been cleared thanks to Tobio. Fortunately, all the windows in kindergarten were equipped with a safety lock, otherwise the two boys would have fallen from the second floor by now.

He’d been promised an intern, an extra member of staff, and instead he’d been given yet another child to look after. But hey, he deserved it, for having rejoiced too soon. As a teacher, Suga still had a lot to learn, but one thing was for sure: he was in for the longest four weeks of his life.


	3. In Which Suga and Iwa-chan Are a Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suga isn’t alone when it comes to dealing with unruly children. Iwaizumi only has one, but somehow that’s worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seijoh chapter because I wanted to write smol Oikawa being the most bratty child ever.

As everyone knew, the month of April had its fair share of good and bad. After a long, hard winter, it felt good to finally ditch the heavy winter clothes, put away the ice skates and snow scrapers, and go on a few walks to savor the warmth of the spring sun. Unfortunately, April had its quirks and among them were its sudden, wholly unexpected weather changes.

Iwaizumi became painfully aware of that fact when he and his kids’ group were caught in a rainstorm during an excursion. Thankfully, the nearby park and playground was only a five-minute walk away from their kindergarten, ensuring that the rain-soaked bunch quickly had a roof over their heads and dry land under their feet. That was one way an excursion could end in spring, even though Iwaizumi had only meant to offer the kids a change of scenery.

“Tooru, if you don’t stop fidgeting _right now,_ I’m leaving you wet,” Iwaizumi warned one of the five-year-olds as he toweled his dripping hair. It didn’t surprise him that the boy was so cranky. Ever since their playground had been “occupied” by a different group of kids, he had been all over him.

“Iwa-chan, that runt from the other group is bugging me. Iwa-chan, now he’s _stalking_ me. Iwa-chan, I’m cold! Iwa-chan, when do we leave? Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan...That’s how it had been going the whole time, after less than one hour on the playground. At some point, Iwaizumi had stopped rewarding his querulous behavior, instead punishing it with ignorance.

“Iwa-chan won’t listen to me!” Tooru sniffled in an exaggerated manner before smearing the remaining snot on his sleeve. “Iwa-chan doesn’t love me anymore!” Said Iwa-chan sighed at the boy’s meltdown and turned to the other kids who needed his help as much as Tooru did. After being struck by heavy rain, he didn’t want to risk either of them catching a cold.

“My mom says when you sniff back your snot, it ends up in your brain,” Takahiro felt the need to share his knowledge. Issei, who was drying off his hair by himself, gave a little shake in response and stuck his tongue out at him in disgust. Tooru did the same and turned around to shoot Iwaizumi a dirty look, before heading to the cozy corner to crawl under a blanket.

“Tired. Feet hurt,” Akira, their youngest child, complained, not nearly as loudly as Iwaizumi was used to hearing from Tooru. They had only walked a total of maybe one mile to the park and back. That’s what came out of being wheeled around in a buggy for almost three years.

After that was settled, Akira dragged himself to one of the beanbags as if he was too weak to walk another step. Iwaizumi took care of the soaked jackets and muddy pants, placing them onto the radiator to dry. Some of the kids needed a fresh set of clothes, but thanks to the cold weather, most of their jackets had been thick enough to keep their shirts from getting soaked.

On days like this, Iwaizumi longed for an assistant after Irihata-san’s retirement. Field trips were an adventure when he wasn’t tagging along with Ushiwaka’s group. That morning, the rain had broken out so suddenly that Iwaizumi hadn’t even had enough time to count his children the way it was supposed to be done. By the end of the day, thankfully, no kid had gone missing and everyone had arrived safely at the kindergarten, including Iwaizumi himself.

Overall, Iwaizumi had been lucky with “his” children. Within his group, there was no one who climbed on roofs, painted walls, or did other naughty things that he tended to hear from other teachers. Except for Tooru, they were all well-behaved and obedient. Okay, Kentarou was a disaster when it came to group play and his manners left a lot to be desired. But as long as Iwaizumi avoided getting into arguments with the four-year-old, he was easy to get along with.

Takahiro’s and Issei’s only flaw was their love of picking on Tooru, and with the former, one had to be careful that he didn’t hog all the candy for himself at snack time. Shigeru and Shinji were, as far as Iwaizumi could tell, fairly ordinary children. Yuutarou was the liveliest, and since Akira slept half the time, he rarely got the chance to start mischief. Iwaizumi’s only constant source of worry was Tooru. He was the oldest, but his behavior said otherwise.

With a sigh, Iwaizumi glanced over to the corner where Tooru had been hiding for quite some time now. For the most part, Tooru was a good kid. Sure, he was a bad loser when it came to board games and had knocked over the table a few times before. Okay _,_ he threw hissy fits whenever another kid had a toy he wanted to play with. _Fine,_ he hurled himself across the floor like a two-year-old when he didn’t get his milk bread, and for crying out loud, he was a brat! Still, Iwaizumi was fond of him, and it hurt when Tooru was miserable on his account.

After making sure everything was in order, Iwaizumi went to check on his giant baby, who, in his opinion, was pouting for no reason. When they had left the playground to seek refuge from the rain, Tooru had latched himself onto his arm, whining non-stop. Iwaizumi, who had just rescued the last child from the downpour, hadn’t been thrilled. Whatever it was that he’d wanted to tell him, it certainly hadn’t been so urgent that it couldn’t wait five more minutes.

“Tooru, have you calmed down?” Iwaizumi asked in the gentlest voice he managed, lifting the blanket the kids had used to build a fort. Curled up next to Tooru between several pillows, little Akira took a nap, the way he always did after a long, stressful excursion. Tooru himself had made himself comfortable in the other corner with his favorite book about space travel, and indeed, didn’t seem too upset anymore. Despite that, he still pulled a face at Iwaizumi.

“I couldn’t listen to you because we were in a rush. How about you tell me now?” Iwaizumi put on his friendliest smile, one that was downright uncomfortable. Although he believed it to be something trivial, like “I’m hungry” or “Yuck rain, get it away from me!”, he still wanted to show Tooru that he was willing to listen to him and not reject him out of malicious intent.

“Now it’s too late,” Tooru shrugged and turned back to his book, “It already happened.”

Iwaizumi shook his head with a resigned huff and left Tooru alone. It was impossible to get something out of the little one when he was in a _mood._ Soon enough, he’d come back all on his own and cling to his arm again, but until then, Iwaizumi would tend to the other children.

\---

Half an hour had passed, and Tooru was still sulking as if someone had spat in his cereal. At Shigeru’s insistent plea. Iwaizumi had started to read out of a storybook. Cross-legged, he sat on a pillow on the carpet, pleased to note that even the youngest children were listening to his story without making a fuss. Takahiro and Issei, since bullying an unresponsive Tooru wasn’t as entertaining, were busy elsewhere. And Kentarou, who had set up a petting zoo consisting of several animal figurines, growled at anyone who ventured within a few feet of his work.

Looking at his kids in front of him, Iwaizumi couldn’t help but smile. Due to the rain, Yuutarou’s onion-shaped hair had been straightened, sticking flat to his head and making him look several inches shorter. Apart from their height, he and Akira looked like identical twins.

The idea was amusing, especially since they had such different personalities. And yet-

Somehow Akira was more attentive than usual, his blue eyes wide open. Normally, the mere _mention_ of storytime was enough to make his eyes fall shut. And was he mistaken, or had he gained weight over the last few days? Especially in the facial area? Iwaizumi had always pictured Akira as this petite, almost fragile child who didn’t eat much. And hadn’t he just been…- _Fuck._

Iwaizumi’s stomach clenched up as the horror in his mind took on a more and more distinct shape.

\---

The children’s shocked faces after Iwaizumi had dropped his book were nothing compared to the sheer panic burning up his insides, almost cutting off his breath. No, this couldn’t have happened. This couldn’t have _happened._ For the second time that day, he hurried towards the cozy corner, yanked off the blanket and came face to face with Tooru, before he - and that was the worst of all - stared into the drowsy face of Akira, whom he had just woken up from his slumber.

“Iwa-chan, you big meanie, now you’ve woken him up! I hope you’re ashamed of yourself!”, Tooru, not understanding the severity of the situation, immediately resumed his scolding.

Akira grumbled and stretched out his little limbs, before shuffling past Iwaizumi without a care in the world. In a robot-like manner, Iwaizumi turned around, and as if in a trance, watched the boy pick up a toy car and plop down to play in another corner of the room. How had he not noticed? They didn’t even look all that similar. What a stupid fucking airhead he was!

“We-” Iwaizumi began in a coarse voice, swallowing hard as his heart pounded against his ribcage.

“We kidnapped a child. _I kidnapped a child!”_

“That’s what I tried to tell you, but you never listen!” Tooru snapped, jumping up from his pillow pile, tiny hands pressed to his hips, “He’s the brat from the other group who’s been stalking me all day. You just picked him up from the playground! Didn’t you notice?”

“W-What?”, Iwaizumi sputtered, at a loss for words. Tooru knew? _That’s_ what he had wanted to tell him all along? Now that he thought about it, the scales fell from his eyes. The other kindergarten group, the rainstorm, the hooded child he had carried off in a hurry, fully convinced that it was Akira, who had a habit of falling asleep on the spot. If only he had counted his children, he would’ve noticed that they had one too many. Today, of all days, he _hadn’t._

“Fuck!” Without paying any more attention to Tooru, Iwaizumi sped-walked back to the playroom, almost tripping over one of Tooru’s many Lego spaceships that littered the carpet.

“Fuck is a bad word,” a high-pitched voice rang in his ear, but he ignored it. He had to put that kid back where it belonged with no time to spare if he didn’t want to get busted. Back in the room, he picked up the “wrong” kid, who didn’t even resist and fled the place within milliseconds.

\---

Shortly after, there was a thumping on the stairs until a certain someone banged on one of the doors on the first floor, still carrying the abducted child. The large painting with the corny-looking sunflower and the words “Welcome to the flower group!” only added to his sore nerves.

Whose idea was it to put that hideous poster on the door? Oh, _yeah._ Ushiwaka’s. Somehow, Ushiwaka had an affinity for plants. Said Ushiwaka was also the one to finally open the door.

“Oh, Iwaizumi-san. Is there a problem?”, was the first thing he asked as if there was _any_ other reason for almost punching through a wooden door before noon. With his floral apron and stoic expression, Ushijima looked ridiculous, but that was a given. On his left arm, he carried a bawling Tsutomu, while Satori clung to his other arm like a monkey and gave their unexpected guest a creepy stare. Iwaizumi had to take a deep breath to keep from losing the rest of his cool.

“He’s the problem.” Iwaizumi held the boy up to his unloved coworker. “I mistook him for Akira and picked him up from the playground.” Even now, the boy hadn’t made a sound and only looked at Ushijima with large baby-blue eyes. Maybe he was still in shock. Ushijima eyed him with a mild frown. This was probably the most emotional reaction Iwaizumi had ever seen on Ushijima’s face since the two of them worked in that blasted kindergarten.

“I see. You have to return him to his real group. It would be wrong to let him stay here,” he finally replied matter-of-factly, making Iwaizumi groan out loud at the obvious conclusion.

“No shit, that’s my whole point! I don’t even know where he belongs. I picked him up in a _rainstorm._ If the management gets wind that I’ve kidnapped a child, I’ll be fired on spot!” Mortified, he noted how the pitch of his voice had risen alongside his level of desperation.

“You’ll just have to find out then.” Whenever Iwaizumi felt compelled to ask his coworker for advice, he wondered why he did this to himself time and time again. Now the boy began to wiggle in his arms and Iwaizumi wasn’t sure who to feel more sorry for, the kidnapped child or himself.

Nevertheless, he did what Ushijima had more or less told him to do. He reflected. Earlier, on the playground, there had been another group of kindergarteners. He vaguely remembered a silver-haired teacher and a guy with long hair who was also involved with the kids in some way. Iwaizumi hadn’t exchanged a word with either of them, but maybe it would have been better if he had. Then he could’ve just contacted them and wouldn’t have to worry. _Wait a minute-_

In this area, there weren’t that many kindergartens, and even if there were, he owned a goddamn phone directory! He simply had to make a call to all the nearby kindergartens and ask if they knew of any missing children. As discreetly as possible, of course, so as to not raise suspicion.

“Thank you, Ushijima-san,” he said before his brain could latch onto his last remaining bit of dignity.

“For what?” Ushijima raised his eyebrows. Iwaizumi shrugged in response. Once again, he and Iwaizumi stared at each other in silence, like aliens communicating with an unknown life form for the first time. Ushijima seemed to take this as a farewell because within the next second, he had slammed the door in his face. Well, that was fine. Right now, he had far more important things to do than having a chit-chat with Ushiwaka and his creepy demon kids.

\---

Once Iwaizumi returned to his children after the “consultation” with Ushijima, everyone rejoiced or rather screamed. To be precise, Tooru was the only one screaming as if Iwaizumi had abandoned them all for a week, despite him only being gone for ten minutes at most. All the others talked in their regular indoor voice or, in Kentarou’s case, growled to themselves.

In the meantime, it had become clear to most of the children that the boy in Iwaizumi’s arms didn’t belong to their group after all, let alone their kindergarten. He wasn’t a “new kid” that Iwaizumi hadn’t introduced to them yet either. In spite of this, Iwaizumi had urged everyone, especially Tooru, to stay out of trouble while he did some research in the next room.

Unfortunately, his first attempts remained unsuccessful. None of the kindergartens he called reported a missing chubby-cheeked boy with blue eyes and black hair. At one point, Iwaizumi suspected that the boy hadn’t even been part of the other _group_ so that he had no choice but to call the police. His stomach ached at the very idea. He would be in so much trouble and would get himself into more and more trouble if he took the wrong measures now.

As if the situation wasn’t hopeless enough, the door burst open and a nagging Tooru, accompanied by his new sidekick, stormed into the room, followed by Takahiro and Issei.

“Iwa-chaaan!”, Tooru started to whine almost instantly, pointing at the “brat” who was following him around with a ball in his hands, “He won’t leave me alone!” Takahiro and Issei chuckled to themselves. Tooru, on the other hand, looked like he was about to break down in tears.

“He likes you, that’s all,” Issei said dryly, and while Takahiro clutched his stomach with laughter, Tooru pursed his lips in an exaggerated pout, signaling his friends that the fondness wasn’t mutual. With the way Tooru was getting worked up, an outsider would get the impression that the “brat” - he really had to ask him for his name - had murdered half his family.

“Can’t you four get along for a couple of minutes? I’m trying my best here.” Iwaizumi sighed, rubbing his temple with the fingers of one hand while holding his phone in the other.

“No-hoo, he gets on my nerves. And he’s a big creep! He just followed me to the bathroom.”

“You don’t mind when Yuutarou or Akira do that. You even ask them to come with you,” Issei stated in a calm voice. Takahiro, who had calmed down from his laughing fit, nodded in silent agreement.

“But he’s _staring_ at me. And he always bugs me to teach him things.” Tooru kept whining, pointing his finger at the unsuspecting boy, as if he were a slimy bug, “I want him to go away!”

“Iwa-san, can we keep him?” Takahiro asked, grinning with malicious glee, “I think he’s kind of nice.” The horrified look Tooru gave him was reason enough for Issei to join in his friend’s teasing.

“Yeah, ever since he arrived, Tooru has been so _angry._ He’s funny when he gets like that,” he said, to which Tooru started to cry for real. The little boy jumped at his sudden emotional outburst and dropped his ball in shock, which went rolling into a corner under the table.

“Noo! Iwa-chan! I don’t want him to stay!”, Tooru bawled, and now the little boy was starting to pull a face as well, finally reacting to all the hurtful words thrown at his head. If Iwaizumi didn’t manage to de-escalate the situation, he would have to deal with t _wo_ crying children.

Without further ado, Iwaizumi scooped up the little boy and placed him on his lap. “What’s your name, little one?” he asked him in a gentle voice, trying his hardest to distract him from Tooru’s temper tantrum. The kid blinked a few times as if he had to process his words first.

“T-Tobio-yo-lo,” he stuttered before dissolving into a series of wet snivels. With his open rejection, Tooru had hit a sore spot. Or maybe he was just hungry, who knew. “Tobi-yolo S-Swageyama.”

“Tobiyolo?” Iwaizumi raised his brows, feeling sorry for the boy for the second time that day. Naming a child “Tobiyolo” bordered on child abuse, but he wasn’t one to talk, being a child kidnapper and all. “So...Tobiyolo then? Okay...well, do you happen to know the name of the kindergarten you go to?” Iwaizumi asked, hoping to enquire some more useful information.

“C-crow group,” he cried out between heavy sobs, tiny fists rubbing his watering eyes. Tooru, Issei, and Takahiro had gone silent by now. Issei had lowered his head in guilt. Takahiro was facing the ceiling, and Tooru stood next to them, arms crossed and lower lip sticking out in defiance.

“Which kindergarten has a crow-group?” Iwaizumi probed deeper. He needed the name of the place, then he could make a phone call and bring the boy back. That was all he had to get out of him.

“The one with the house, and the backyard,” Tobiyolo replied with a hiccup. Iwaizumi had to restrain himself from smacking his hand against his forehead. He couldn’t have described his kindergarten in less specific terms unless there existed some sort of eco-kindergarten nearby where the kids slept in tents. In this area, however, such organizations were unknown to him.

“Look Iwa-chan, he’s not only a leech and a stalker but stupid like a loaf of toast!”, Tooru ended the silence. When Iwaizumi gave him one of his infamous death-glares, he squeaked and backed off a few steps. How did a kid with a rotten personality like him manage to make friends in kindergarten in the first place? Takahiro and Issei must have had nerves of steel.

“Wow, you’re really mean to him, Tooru-chan. All he wanted to do was play ball with you. In the bathroom,” Issei teased before taking a deliberate step aside when Tooru tried to stomp on his foot.

Iwaizumi, still holding a sobbing Tobiyolo, a name he would never get used to, mulled over where he had heard of this ominous “crow-group” before. The term seemed familiar, yet he couldn’t picture anything tangible. Hadn’t Ushiwaka mentioned a group with a similar name at one point? Thinking hard, he sought to revive his memories. Now he regretted spacing out whenever his coworker told one of his stories, but Ushijma’s monotone voice was hard to listen to.

Hadn’t he also mentioned a tiny, orange-haired boy in the park who had nearly broken his neck on the jungle gym? And a blonde girl who cried all the time? The more he was thinking about it, the more it all came clear. Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason, the number of the kindergarten that was on his mind wasn’t listed in the phone directory. But none of that was relevant now. He knew where that kindergarten was located. It wasn’t far off. He would bring Tobioyolo, his unwanted hostage, back home, and if it was the last thing he did.

Without further hesitation, he put the boy, who had stopped crying by then, down on the floor. Then he shooed him, Tooru, Issei, and Takahiro off to the dressing room to change into their outdoor clothes. To make an exception today, Iwaizumi fetched the hardly used wooden cart from the storeroom so that poor Yuutarou wouldn’t have to drag a lazy Akira across the street.

The rest of the children, who had been playing the entire time, made big eyes when Iwaizumi announced a second field trip only a short time after their visit to the playground. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, safe for a light drizzle. Nevertheless, Iwaizumi decided to cover all the kids, including little Tobiyolo, with a sky blue rain cape, in case it started to pour again.

With all the kids at the door, looking more or less enthusiastic, but fully dressed and in pairs, Iwaizumi once again counted them all. Two times, three times, until his confidence in his own sense of responsibility was restored and he felt safe enough to leave the room. He told Ushiwaka that they were going on another walk, and before Tooru could screech “Iwa-chan!” they were back on the road. Now, Iwaizumi regretted taking the cart, in which half the children had made themselves comfortable as if they wanted to keep the still dozing Akira company.

\---

At the same time, a certain silver-haired teacher and his young intern, whose long hair was plastered to his forehead, were roaming the park in soaked clothes, checking every bush for their missing child.

“This is all my fault!”, Asahi lamented for the twelfth time that morning, close to tears by now, “It’s all because of _my_ bad karma! Only that! I never should have left the house today!”

“Bullshit. I’m the adult in charge here,” Sugawara refuted him almost instantly, “I should’ve noticed that Tobio’s missing. He never ran off before, and I didn’t count the children because of this stupid _rainstorm._ I’m the one who messed up, so don’t you dare blame yourself!”

Suga was at his wits’ end. After the rain had started, he and Asahi had wanted to get the children “home” as quickly as possible. His plans had been ruined by Yuu, who had climbed to the top of the highest wooden tower and refused to leave his self-assigned throne. When Suga had finally managed to bribe the rowdy with an extra bowl of dessert after lunch, he had had to scoop up Shouyou from the slide and stop Ryu from hurling himself into a puddle of mud.

Asahi had tracked down Tadashi and Kei in the bushes, absorbed in their dinosaur role-playing game, and Hitoka had made her presence known by crying. Suga had been so sure that all the children were gathered together. How they could’ve forgotten _Tobio_ of all kids, or rather Tobio had forgotten about them, he wasn’t sure either. Regardless, it was a disaster.

“Tobioo!” Suga called out, his voice hoarse from shouting, ignoring the shiver of cold that wracked his body. He hadn’t even bothered to put on a jacket before leaving the building in a rush, along with Asahi. In the meantime, at least Daichi and Kiyoko were taking care of the children they _hadn’t_ forgotten in the rain today. As long as one of his babies was out there, Suga couldn’t keep still, and Asahi always felt responsible for any kind of misfortune.

They had to find Tobio, surely he couldn’t have wandered off that far with his three years? On the other hand, what if he had walked onto the street and been hit by a car, or worse...if a child kidnapper had snatched him up? Suga’s gut churned, and a flash of rage overrode his initial panic. He was going to tear both of this guy’s arms and legs off if he ran into him, that was for sure.

They must have searched the park thirty times in a row by now, and even though Suga vowed not to give up, he couldn’t stop himself from losing hope. The crushing headlines of the gossip press flashed before his inner eyes: “Teachers abandon three-year-old on a playground. 10 reasons why you shouldn’t send your child to kindergarten, and why vaccines are evil”.

If this came out in the open, not a single person would trust him with their child again, even though he had always been so diligent when it came to his job. Every muscle of his body tensed at the notion, leaving him shaken and sick to his stomach. So that was how Shouyou always felt. Hopefully, Asahi would keep his distance just in case. The warning might come too late.

Worn out, Suga sank down on one of the benches. The wood was moist and cold against the seat of his pants, but he paid it no mind. Asahi stood nearby with his shoulders sagging. Surely that wasn’t how he had imagined his internship to end like, running through a park in the rain to find a missing child, just because a certain someone couldn’t keep his eyes open.

“We have to find him,” Sugawara wheezed, repeating the same thing over and over again like a broken record. He ran his hand through his hair, no longer sure whether it was soaked with rain or sweat.

“Suga-san? Maybe the man over there has seen him. He has kids,” Asahi suggested in his usual timid voice. Suga forced himself to look up. His vision was blurred by his exhaustion, and from a distance, he was only able to make out a tall figure accompanied by a few light blue spots.

Judging by the number of children, it had to be a kindergarten group. His heart skipped a beat, or two or three or a hundred. Could it be that... _no,_ he was getting his hopes up too high. And yet, the young man in his field of vision picked up the pace all of sudden, almost running towards him and Asahi while pulling a cart with a horde of whooping children.

“Please, let Tobio be with him! _Please!_ I’ll never tease Daichi again!” Suga pleaded with the gods as he rose on shaky legs to ask the other group’s teacher about his missing child. He never got to say a word as, through the muddle of sky-blue raincoats, something tiny came running at him.

Instinctively, he crouched down, the way he did whenever he had to comfort a crying child. Before he could mentally prepare himself, the little boy had launched himself into his arms. At first, he could hardly believe his luck, but it wasn’t an illusion. Tobio had returned, and he was alive!

“Tobio, where the heck have you been?” he sobbed, big fat tears of relief welling up in his eyes. It must have been a funny sight to see him, a teacher at the age of twenty-something, cry more than a three-year-old who had been separated from his caregivers for hours on end. He must have been so scared, the brave little boy, but now all was well again. Tobio hadn’t been run over by a car or kidnapped by a child predator, and Suga wasn’t about to lose his job.

Still, Suga couldn’t stop chastising himself for his irresponsibility until Asahi, of all people, gave him an awkward pat on the back. As Suga continued to press little Tobio against his chest, unwilling to let go, the boy made no sound and instead, fisted his tiny hands in Suga’s soaked T-shirt.

“I’m so sorry! None of this should have happened!” A voice that surprisingly wasn’t his own reached Suga’s ears. Looking up despite his tear-stained face, the other man stood in front of him, bowing deeply and launching one apology after another. Baffled, Suga echoed his words, and the two of them chattered away, each of them insisting they had made the bigger mess.

In the end, neither of them could decide on the worse offense: forgetting a child on a playground, or picking said child up and taking it home? Neither were trivial offenses and yet the situation was somewhat comical. If Suga hadn’t almost passed out from anxiety, he might’ve laughed. At least Tobio had been in good hands with the other group, and maybe even made a few friends.

“Iwa-chan, can we leave already?”, one of the older-looking boys whined, clinging to the arm of his teacher, whose full name, “Iwaizumi”, Sugawara had come to know, “Now that we’ve dropped off the brat, we might as well go back to kindergarten.” Tobio, face still buried in Suga’s chest, turned around at his words, and to his, and Suga’s, surprise, stuck his tongue out at him. This light, minuscule gesture of rebellion was enough to rouse the other boy to fury.

“Arrgh…just you wait, you brat! I’ll show you how to stick out your tongue, my tongue is much longer than yours, you stupid doofus-ouchie!” the boy squeaked as Iwaizumi grabbed him by the hood of his coat and hauled him back before he could pounce on the much smaller Tobio.

“Is he always like that?”, Suga asked, surprised by the behavior of the boy, whom Daichi probably would have smacked long ago had he been in Iwaizumi’s shoes, legal or not. Iwaizumi nodded with a sigh as the whimpering boy flailed in his grasp, hands balled into fists.

“I don’t think they’ll be friends anytime soon,” Iwaizumi said dryly, earning a chuckle from Suga. No, friendship didn’t look quite like that. Suga could be grateful for his group of ten little troublemakers, as long as there wasn’t one of _that_ kind involved. Iwaizumi wasn’t to be envied.

“I’m Sugawara from the crow-group, by the way, and this is Asahi, our current intern,” he introduced them both after Iwaizumi had made him feel like a comrade in suffering, “Maybe our groups can meet up again in the future. When the weather is nicer, of course.” Iwaizumi nodded, the hint of a smile popping up on his face. It was crazy to think that they had run into each other so many times, yet never exchanged a single word before. Iwaizumi was an okay guy, really, not one who deserved to have his limbs torn off, even though he had kidnapped Tobio.

“Noo, I don’t want to meet him on the playground again! He’s a pain in the butt! Iwa-chan, say something!”, the boy started whining again, tugging at Iwaizumi's sleeve. That made him lose the rest of his patience. With one last “Shut up, Tooru!”, he picked up the little nuisance and stuffed him into the cart, in which two boys of Tooru’s height were already laughing at his misfortune.

After Suga had, once again, apologized to Iwaizumi for the inconvenience, the groups parted ways. Never before had Suga been so glad to return to the kindergarten, rainy weather aside.

\---

“Kiyoko-san! Daichi-san! They’re back!” Yuu shouted in a flurry of excitement, standing on the window sill and leaving smudges on the glass with his sticky fingers, “Oh, and there’s Tobio, too!”

“What? Tobio?” Shouyou screeched across the playroom and joined his friend on the window sill. Unlike Yuu, he didn’t need a chair to climb up there. While the two kids pressed their noses against the window, Daichi was unable to scold them, even if he had wanted to. Too great was the relief at the return of his two coworkers, who had managed to return their lost child.

“I’m so glad,” Kiyoko looked out of the window with a rare smile. With Ryu clinging to her neck as he often did, she watched in amazement as the two men plus one boy, all of whom seemed to be alive and well, stepped through the front gate. Daichi no longer regretted that, on Suga’s advice, he had neither called the police nor sent Yaku and Akaashi into a frenzy.

When Suga and Asahi, both exhausted and frozen to the bone, entered the room, Tobio found himself at the center of everyone’s attention. After Shouyou had pulled his best friend into a hug, Yuu and Ryu, excited as always, started to interrogate him about his oh-so-exciting adventures.

While Kei displayed his usual indifference, the others were simply happy to have their Tobio back so that the group’s atmosphere was no longer as toxic as it had been a few minutes ago. Tobio looked overwhelmed, and it was Daichi who had to put his foot down to keep the kids, especially Yuu, Ryu, and Shouyou, from subjecting their youngest to an unneeded amount of sensory overload.

“Tooru doesn’t like me,” was the first thing Tobio said after the group had quieted down a bit, a solemn look on his face. “He said I’m stupid like a loaf of toast.” As a result, the other kids looked indecisive, understandably, since they had no idea what Tobio had been up to with this “Tooru”.

“I don’t care if you’re stupid or not,” Shouyou interrupted the silence, then stepped in front of his friend with his chest puffed up and his hands on his hips, “I like you _just_ the way you are.”

Shouyou had probably expected, like the rest of the group, that Tobio would pounce on him to start a fight, or at least insult him. Instead, he stuck out his tongue and snorted in irritation before plodding off to the dining room. After skipping lunch, he had to be starving. Suga and Kiyoko chuckled at Shouyou’s puzzled face. Even Daichi had recovered his sense of humor, though it was hard to laugh when one had spent hours frowning like the sun would never rise again.

The word “sun” was a good cue. A few of the kids had gathered at one of the larger windows, squealing in delight. Now, the rain was showing its pleasant sides. With a satisfied smile, Daichi looked at the rainbow that graced the sunny, almost cloudless sky with its multitude of colors. Suga and Asahi stood beside him, both wrapped in fuzzy blankets, each holding a hot cup of tea.

“Woah, awesome! Can we go play outside? Please!” Yuu begged, turning to the adults with puppy dog eyes. The other kids were nearly as wired up, but Daichi stopped them right there and then.

“After all this excitement, I think it’s time for lunch, don’t you agree?” he asked, sending an amused wink at Suga and Asahi, who both smiled back. That was all he needed to say, as the kids had already forgotten about the spectacle of colors in the sky, and instead, raced towards the dining room, where they crowded by the door. It hadn’t taken long for things to get back to normal after the crows had found their lost fledgling. Tobio, after recovering from his unforeseen adventure, could soon be heard trying out his freshly acquired swear words on Shouyou.

Daichi still had to ask Suga what exactly had happened and where he had found Tobio, but that could wait until the afternoon. For now, it was important to make sure the kids didn’t murder each other over lunch. After all, the day was far from over and more excitement was about to come. But if Daichi had wanted a boring life, he would have chosen a different profession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa: don’t hit children lol


	4. B.V. - Before Volleyball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year has passed and the crows are spreading out their wings. Suga laments the fact they’re growing up so fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last time you'll hear of me before the end of the year ;) I hope you're all doing well.

It all happened on one of those hot and humid summer days when many people resented the fact that they had made a fuss about winter a few months earlier. Summer had arrived quickly this year, invading the city with its cruel heat waves. All of a sudden, even the most overprotective parents stopped forcing their kids into long snow pants and itchy sweaters.

That day, Suga had been prepared for everything, from drowning children in the pool, to gashing wounds because someone had slid down the slide upside down, to wild water fights with a lot of screaming and more gashing wounds. To his luck, none of this had occurred.

Apart from the fact that Shouyou had dyed his hair white with absurd amounts of sunscreen, Lev had peed in the pool from the top of the slide, and Tetsurou had considered it funny to scare the younger children by playing “Jaws”, everything had gone smoothly. At some point, even the most lively kids were tired from playing and grateful to escape the oppressive heat by moving back into the comfort of the cool building. Now that the biggest source of danger was eliminated, the day couldn’t get any more exciting. That’s what Suga had thought.

Sadly, he had been blind to childlike logic and the fact that his crows weren’t baby chicks anymore.

A whole year had passed since Suga had finished his training and accepted his first “real” job in the crow-group. A year wasn’t that long of a time in the life of an adult, and yet, with each passing day, Suga became more aware of how much had changed without him realizing it.

\---

A pleasant silence had settled in the room where Daichi and Suga watched over the kids, who either no longer needed a nap or had been sleeping long enough already. Even though Daichi had to remind Hisashi and Kazuhito multiple times to not make too much noise digging in the Lego box, the kids were quiet enough to not disturb the long sleepers in the nap room nearby.

Now that they were all a year older, many of them needed less sleep than before. According to his parents, pressuring Yuu to take a nap after lunch was no longer a good idea because then the whirlwind would still be up at around midnight. For Ryu, it was the same, not to mention that the hot weather caused him additional discomfort. In the winter, one could still put on thick socks when freezing, but wearing less than “nothing” sadly wasn’t an option.

For the fact that so many kids had gotten up or hadn’t even gone to bed, the silence seemed out of place. Perhaps that was only because Ryu and Yuu had ducked into the bathroom at the end of the hallway and couldn’t be heard. The longer Suga thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the two were playing “toilet pirates” with their handcrafted paper boats again.

Should he let them have their fun to cool off, or stop them to avoid flooding? On the other hand, with the two of them busy and their main troublemakers under Kiyoko’s supervision, it was so _quiet._

Kei, bored without his napping friend, had decided to do crafts using some old boxes. He had been working on his creation for a while now, assembling a cute little town. Suga admired his creativity, which was in no way inferior to Hitoka’s, even if the latter was better at drawing disturbing pictures. Suga was about to offer the little artist to display his work on the shelf for the other kids to admire, but by then, Kei had already torn down everything with his dinosaur.

There was something poetic about it. Nothing truly lasts forever. At least not in the world of Godzilla.

\---

While Kei rearranged his boxes and Chikara joined the two Lego builders, Suga felt queasy thinking about the potential chaos in the bathroom. He was about to tell Daichi and check on things when a little boy with tousled hair and mint-green pajamas stepped into the hallway.

“Shouyou, you have to go potty?” Suga chuckled to himself. Maybe he had finished sleeping, or woken up because Tobio had poked him in the eye. Although, if that were the case he would’ve screamed, so he probably just needed to pee again. Well, some things never change.

Wordless, the little boy stood in the doorway rubbing his eyes, as if he had to remind himself of the way to the toilet first. Suga was about to ask him if everything was all right and if he needed help, but Shouyou answered that question more quickly than he would’ve liked.

Instead of heading to the bathroom, he tumbled over to him and Daichi, dropped his plush lion on the floor and flung himself at Suga with the speed of a freight train. Then, out of nowhere, he started sobbing. Loudly. For a second, Suga was in shock, and it only got worse when Shouyou burst into real tears the next moment. Suga had expected everything, except that.

Shouyou _never_ cried. Not like that.

“Shouyou, my goodness!” Suga lifted the boy onto his lap, which only made him cry harder. Unable to calm down, he clawed at Suga’s shirt and buried his face in his chest. This wasn’t your average “Ouch, I fell!” crying, it wasn’t ”Tobio’s bullying me again” crying, and it had nothing to do with the typical sulking whenever they ran out of dessert at lunch. Whatever it was, something must have hurt him so deeply that he no longer knew how to help himself.

“Shou?” Kei looked up from his pile of glue-stained boxes, forehead crinkled and eyes scrunched up.

Usually, Kei was the first to sneer and laugh at other children when they fell off their tricycles or bumped into a lamppost while out for a walk. For the first time since Kei had joined the crow-group, a spark of empathy showed up on his otherwise emotionless face. Chikara and the rest had also paused their merry Lego game and stood up to awkwardly stroke Shouyou’s back.

A clatter resounded in the hallway, and within less than two seconds, Ryu and Yuu were back in the room, soaked from head to toe. One could only imagine how the bathroom looked like.

“Shouyou, buddy! Are you lovesick? Or did you step on Lego?”, Yuu shouted from afar, and before Daichi could ask them why they looked like a pair of castaways, a mob of kids had gathered around Suga and the still weeping Shouyou. However, the most surprising part was that Kei also got up from his chair and took small steps in Suga’s direction as if he had to force himself to do so. Then he, even more surprisingly, nudged Shouyou with his plush dinosaur.

“Ichigo hates your crying,” he muttered, and sure enough, his unexpected attempts at pep talk prompted Shouyou to stop crying and turn to his non-friend with a puzzled expression.

“Did you just comfort him, Tsukki?” Ryu asked in disbelief, voicing what everyone had been thinking. All eyes turned to Kei, who looked uncomfortable with the amount of attention he received.

“I told him to stop crying,” he replied, almost embarrassed, before heading back to his seat, “And don’t call me Tsukki! Only Tadashi’s allowed to call me that.” Said Tadashi was still tucked in bed, sleeping peacefully, but surely, he would’ve been happy about this pledge of allegiance.

Though Shouyou had calmed down, he remained unhappy, still clinging to Sugawara’s wet shirt. Whatever it was that had thrown the cheerful boy so far off course, it had to be serious.

“Shouyou, you have to tell us what’s wrong. Let us help you.” Daichi sat down on one of the small chairs next to Suga. “Does your tummy hurt? A nightmare? Did one of the kids pick on you? Tobio maybe?” Shouyou, thankfully responsive again, replied to each of those questions with a shake of his head accompanied by a miserable sniffle. Suga was at the end of his rope. Tobio couldn’t be the culprit here, because Shouyou would have tattled on him right away.

If it wasn’t a nightmare, what was it? Maybe it had nothing to do with the kindergarten at all? Even Kiyoko, who entered the room carrying a half-awake Hitoka, seemed clueless. Like everyone else, she must’ve thought Shouyou just wanted to go to the bathroom like he did at every nap time.

“K-Koutarou...the others...all gone...never again…s-sad,” Shouyou sobbed, more fat tears running down his sore cheeks. The notion of the almost six-year-old from the owl-group set off Suga’s alarms.

“Koutarou? What did he do?”, Suga questioned, attempting to hide his budding frustration. Maybe this Koutarou really _was_ a bad influence on the little one, especially if Tetsurou was in on it as well. Shouyou had always looked up to both of them, always pleased when the “big kids” let him join their games. That day, he had agreed to let Koutarou haul him into the water, and had still been laughing afterwards. And now he was _crying_ because of him?

“Koutarou said-” Shouyou carried on with a hiccup, wiping at his reddened eyes, “He said that next spring, all the big kids will pass, and _never_ come back. Koutarou, Tetsurou, Yamato- and then the spring after that, some of us will pass too. Even Ryu and Yuu. My mom said that to pass means to die. But if they’re all dead, then I won’t have anyone left to play with.”

Suga listened to his speech, and the more the boy said, the harder it was for him not to get up and bang his head against the nearest wall. So _that_ was what had been bothering poor Shouyou all this time. Never before had he encountered such an absurd misunderstanding.

“You’re stupid, Shouyou,” Kei cut off the silence in his usual icy voice, this time without a trace of sympathy left,” They won’t die, they’ll be sent to school, you nitwit! You have to go there too when you’re big. You don’t know anything, do you?” With that, he voiced precisely what had been on Suga’s mind, though he would have preferred to leave out all the insults.

“What happens in school?” Shouyou asked, now more curious than upset. Likewise, the other kids had started to pay attention, aware that Kei had a brother who did go to school already.

“You have to sit still and listen to the teacher. If you don’t, you’ll get a spanking, and if you don’t do your chores, they’ll dump cold water over your head,” Kei replied, causing Shouyou to start bawling again, though probably more about the spanking part than the cold water.

“Kei, this is not the time for mean jokes,” Daichi admonished him, earning a blank look and a shrug from the four-year-old. Without a word, he picked up his glue and settled back into his craft. Apparently, Kei had either seen too many vintage movies, or his brother had pulled his leg, a common practice among siblings. Still, it was worrying how casually Kei dealt with the assumption that his brother went to a place where kids were tormented on a daily basis.

“Don’t listen to that jerk, Shouyou! My sister told me what school’s _really_ like,” Ryuu tried to cheer up his friend and, as one of the older kids, had his immediate attention “She said they play sports a lot. They even have clubs for it. I wanna play volleyball. We could join a club together.”

With each sentence, Shouyou’s eyes glowed brighter. If it weren’t for the red spots around his nose, one wouldn’t have guessed that he had just been crying like the world was about to end.

“Like the small giant? Woaah! This is gonna be awesome!”, he yelled and jumped down from Suga’s lap to do a happy dance with Ryu and Yuu, who had joined the celebration. Some kids laughed, Kei groaned, and Suga tried to adapt to the sudden shift in the atmosphere. At least Shouyou was back to his old self, even if he had given him a stomach ache and half a heart attack.

“Don’t think that all you do in school is play, though,” Daichi brought them back to earth, “School also means studying. Reading, writing, multiplication, things that aren’t always fun, you know?”

“Awww! Too bad!”, the three of them cried in unison, facing the floor, before Yuu, struck by a flash of inspiration, announced his plans by raising his arm, index finger pointing at the ceiling.

“If that’s the case, then I’ll just keep having fun in kindergarten. Then I’ll go to school, learn reading and writing and that plutimication thing, and when I’m done with it, I’ll go join the volleyball club. And then we’ll all play volleyball together!” After the friends had performed their second happy dance of the day, the noise had woken up the rest of the children, with the exception of Tadashi. Kiyoko had to wake him up today, possibly with cold water. They _had_ to get him out of bed until snack time, with Kei too busy to wake him up the “regular” way.

“Before you start school, you still have a few years of kindergarten ahead of you,” Daichi said, but now that the three of them had a shared goal, it was impossible to talk them out of it.

Granted, they were unlikely to end up at the same elementary school, and even if they did, hobbies changed. Maybe little Yuu wouldn’t even be into sports anymore, but do something different, like join the music club and play the trombone...or the triangle. Yeah, probably the triangle.

No matter what they decided to do, they would have to deal with letdowns, each and every one of them. Still, it was great to have dreams, something to be spurred on by. Who knew, maybe Shouyou would indeed become a famous volleyball player, like the small giant whose matches were broadcasted on tv. Hopefully, he would have his nerves under control by then, and not puke or have to make a run for the bathroom before a match or during an interview.

“Hey, Tobioo!”, Shouyou called out to his friend, who came shuffling into the room like an old man, mouth wide open as he yawned. “You’ll join the volleyball club too, right? Please, say you’re joining! You could set up the balls for us.” Tobio replied by rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, blinking a few times, and then finally nodding as if it was a matter of course. Whether he had listened or was still half-asleep, Shouyou rejoiced and leaped up high into the air before bouncing around his drowsy, irritated-looking friend like a human ping-pong ball.

“It’s nice that you have so much planned already,” Suga commented on his kids’ ambitions with a twinkle in his eye, “But, in order to play sports, you have to eat to build up your strength. And I don’t recall the small giant playing volleyball in his pajamas or underwear.”

With a mischievous grin, he urged the children who hadn’t changed yet to hurry since they would be going outside later. If they wanted to pick up the Lego bricks and paper scraps from the floor, clean Kei’s glasses of glue residue, and wipe up the water puddles, they needed more time.

“Let’s start practicing today so that when we go to school, we’ll be really good! Then we’ll knock out all our opponents. Like boom, and woosh!”, Yuu cheered, swinging his arms in the air. Ryu followed suit, but before the two could get hyped up once again, Daichi put a hand on each of their shoulders. Shouyou, who hadn’t done anything for once, kept his distance at Daichi’s evil glare and walked backwards to his chair, where his own clothes waited for him.

“That’s all well and good, but now _please_ tell me why you two are sopping wet!” Daichi demanded in a low voice, his words causing the two five-year-olds to shrink into themselves, Yuu being short enough as it was, “I didn’t know you showered with your clothes nowadays.” It wasn’t apparent in Ryu’s case, since he wasn’t wearing much. Yuu, on the other hand, looked like he’d been tossed headfirst into a river. There wasn’t a single dry spot on his pajamas.

“We splashed around...while playing toilet pirates,” Yuu admitted, looking at Suga with big eyes, but this time he had no sympathy for the two of them. Three times a week was enough.

“And _you_ want to go to school. With you, the teacher doesn’t have to bring a water bucket.” Daichi sighed, and, to the relief and gratitude of the children, averted his stern gaze, “You two get changed, and I’ll take care of the bathroom so there won’t be any accidents later.”

With those words, Daichi headed toward the bathroom. The two offenders took another deep breath, a hand on each of their chests. Sure, Daichi could be scary sometimes, but today, he had shown mercy and hadn’t ordered the kids to clean up the puddles. Likewise, Shouyou was back in high spirits and soon sat at the table fully dressed, as if nothing had ever been amiss.

It was an unrealistic thing to wish for, especially since Shouyou wanted to play volleyball so badly, but Suga wished with all his heart that the boy would never have a reason to cry the way he did today. Not in kindergarten, not in school, and never again in his whole life. But even if Suga wasn’t a father or grandfather, he too would have to learn to let go soon.

\---

By the time the crows had finished eating and taken care of everything else, it was late in the afternoon. Outside, it was still warm and sticky, but the sky had darkened, hinting at a storm later. When Daichi caught sight of Michimiya, his coworker from the littlest group, his mood lifted and he greeted her with a warm smile. It wasn’t often that they went into the yard at the same time since the kids in Michimiya’s group had their own toddler-friendly play area.

“Natsuu! Heey!” Shouyou yelled as soon as he spotted his sister amidst the group of babies.

With her fuzzy, bright orange hair and the flowery dress barely covering her diaper, it was easy to make her out from a distance. If it hadn’t been for the pacifier in her mouth, she would’ve yelled back in baby speak. Instead, she flapped her arms like a bird and gurgled happily upon seeing Shouyou. Natsu loved her big brother more than anything and he loved her, even if he was sometimes a little rough with her, like right now. Not that he meant any harm.

“Shouyou, how many times do I have to tell you not to drag her around! She’s a baby, not a doll!” Daichi scolded him, not thrilled with the way Shouyou tried to haul his sister into the sandbox.

“I think Natsu’s tough enough to handle it.” Michimiya laughed, closing the distance between their groups and putting a hand on Daichi's shoulder, “She’s a whirlwind, really, always on the go. Sometimes, I think she’d be better off in one of the big groups.” It wasn’t a lie. Natsu resembled her brother in more ways than just looks, especially when they were playing together.

“I’ll go check on them. Just making sure Shouyou won’t bury and forget her in the sand like last week,” Daichi announced with a grimace and headed off to the sandbox where the older kids, including Shouyou, were building and destroying a sandcastle to humor the lively toddler. Left behind were Suga, Michimiya, and Yaku. Suga had made himself comfortable on one of the benches, Michimiya watched over the rest of her group, and Yaku kept Suga company.

“Something’s on your mind?”, Yaku asked with a mildly concerned grin after punching Suga’s shoulder, “You’re worried about the little ones, aren’t you?” Suga shook his head and forced himself to smile, which probably looked more like he had bitten into a lemon. There was no reason for him to mope around. The kids hadn’t tormented him any more than usual, and even if they had, they were doing well. At the moment, Shouyou was trying to stop Natsu from eating the sand they needed for their new castle, but as they say, dirt cleans the stomach.

Tobio, otherwise obsessed with playing ball, had also joined in their game and got Chikara to teach him how to build a sandcastle that didn’t collapse in a matter of seconds. Both Hinata siblings were rather amused by his failed attempts. Fortunately, all stayed peaceful. The days of Shouyou and Tobio whacking each other on the head with their shovels were over. Perhaps it was Natsu’s presence that forced at least Shouyou to hold back in order to be a decent role model.

“I remember when Natsu was still in her mother’s womb,” Suga said after observing the scene for a few minutes, craning his neck as a wave of confusing emotions swept through him, a weight settling in his chest. “And now look at her, Yaku. She’s walking, with not even a year.”

Meanwhile, Tadashi and Hitoka happily ran past them towards the swing where Akaashi and Kiyoko were teaming up to try and free Koutarou, who had somehow gotten tangled up in the chains. Kei watched the mess from a safe distance. If he were Chikara, he would have taken a photo by now.

“She’s just very advanced for her age. Kenma still expected to be carried around like a baby when he was three,” Yaku said with a chuckle, ignoring the “Akaaashi!” cries from the swing set, “But, I guess he could’ve walked...if he’d wanted to.” Their eyes fell on Kenma, quiet and grouchy as always, who was being dragged across the lawn by Tetsurou and Tora like a stubborn dog.

“How do you think Kenma will cope with Tetsurou leaving next year?” Suga asked, though there was another question on his mind. Yaku thought about it, evident from the furrowing of his brow.

“I think Kenma’s gonna be fine. Sure, things will be hard at first, for Lev and Tora as well, but he’ll be fine. He’s not the same Kenma he was a year ago.” Despite his coworker’s vague statement, Suga understood. He felt lighter, but that didn’t soothe the unpleasant twinge in his chest.

“You see, I’m more worried about Lev,” Yaku said before Suga could come up with anything more sentimental, “If he keeps growing in the next two years, we’re gonna have to build a higher fence. We don’t want our lion cub to break loose, do we?” Despite the fact that Yaku was completely serious when he uttered the words, the corners of his mouth lifted into a grin.

Meanwhile, Lev was just realizing that, unlike Yuki, he couldn’t crouch down behind every tiny bush without being spotted during hide and seek. Yet again, little... _big_ Lev stood with his face against a tree, counting down from ten while Sou, Shohei, and Yuki scurried through the yard looking for a suitable hiding spot. He kept smiling, so he must’ve been content with his role.

“Kei has grown quite a bit as well. Though, he still hardly eats anything except candy. I’m starting to think he’s doing photosynthesis. If he keeps this up, he’ll be taller than his brother before he turns six,” Suga said with a laugh, and it didn’t take long before Yaku and he were engaged in a lively conversation about the development and numerous ways in which “their” children had progressed. Only now did Suga realize how much had changed in a year.

So he told Yaku how proud he was that Hitoka had overcome most of her anxiety and no longer cried at every little thing, how Tobio finally spoke in full sentences when he wanted something and only resorted to swear words half of the time. He also boasted about how their oldest kids, while still rambunctious and full of mischief, had become much more considerate and took care of the younger ones instead of knocking them over at every opportunity.

At the time, Ryu and Yuu were attempting to play volleyball. Since they lacked both arm strength and technique and the ball was too big and heavy for their small hands, they ended up playing soccer. After that got too boring, they gave up on the ball and agreed to play catch with Tetsurou and Koutarou. Perhaps, they were still a bit too young for “real” volleyball.

Their game of tag had gone well until Yuu found himself face first in the mud, but instead of being disheartened, he rose to his feet, grinned, and accepted his new role as a catcher. Maybe it was a coincidence, but maybe also a sign...the final confirmation Suga had been waiting for.

“Time has moved really fast today.” Yaku looked at his watch with a creased brow, “The kids should be picked up soon. Hopefully, Lev’s parents won’t be as late as they were yesterday, or he’ll get on my nerves later.” Suga nodded, and for the first time since that whole mess with Shouyou, he didn’t feel anxious anymore, only a bit thoughtful. A soft breeze wafted around his nose and the clouds over the horizon were starting to turn a reddish hue. Yaku had been right.

Time had flown by, but there was no point in trying to stop it. Sooner or later they would all go to school, and for now, Suga was sure that they were strong enough for this adventure.

There was an end to everything, even kindergarten, but their young lives had only just begun.

* * *

Bonus Drabble (100 words lol):

“Kiyoko-san, are you gonna swim with us today? Will you only wear shorts like we do? Or a bikini?” Yuu’s eyes sparkled in the sunlight. Like his buddy Ryu, he had been glued to his “favorite teacher” the whole morning, babbling to her non-stop. In Kiyoko’s position, Suga would’ve felt harassed, though Yuu was too young and innocent to have ulterior motives.

“No. All I’m planning to do is dip my feet in the water,” Kiyoko replied, ignoring the disappointed whining. Suga chuckled. Hopefully, the girls at their future schools had strong nerves...and the boys, and everyone else, too.


End file.
